It has been a common practice in the preparation of meat products to use several small meat product parts to produce a final larger meat product such as a ham. In this process the meat product parts are first massaged to bring exudates to the surface of the parts and the parts are thereby pressed together and cooked allowing the exudates to act as adhesives for securely binding the parts together through this cooking process. In addition, it has been a common practice in the past to smoke various meat products in a smoke house to give them a smoked taste and in addition to produce an appealing outer surface color on the meat products cooked in this matter.
This smoking process has been used in preparation of products such as hams, poultry and fish products. Manufacturers of turkey meat products have, prepared turkey breast meat in various methods. As an example, manufacturers have processed turkey breast meat parts in moisture proof casings thereby cooking the turkey breast parts and forming an integral mass due to the exudates of the turkey meat parts bonding them together. This type of product is of the type generally served on a deli shelf or in a cold cut section of a grocery store and has a very white color with no appealing smoked flavoring or smoke colored surface coating.